Ending the Unsustainable Shark Trade

 IFAW works to ensure the glob­al trade in sharks and rays is effec­tive­ly reg­u­lat­ed. Over half of the world’s sharks and rays are threat­ened or near threat­ened with extinc­tion, large­ly due to inter­na­tion­al demand for their fins and meat. By work­ing with gov­ern­ments via the Con­ven­tion on Inter­na­tion­al Trade in Endan­gered Species of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra (CITES), threat­ened sharks that are trad­ed in high num­bers can be lim­it­ed to sus­tain­able lev­els, allow­ing their pop­u­la­tions to recov­er. CITES man­age­ment pri­or­i­tizes the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and seizures of ille­gal ship­ments of shark prod­ucts, as well as dri­ving bet­ter fish­eries man­age­ment at the nation­al lev­el — lead­ing to effec­tive reduc­tions in shark mor­tal­i­ty worldwide.

For more information visit: https://www.ifaw.org/animals/sharks